


the exit wounds of every misfired word

by Rhovanel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Ghosts, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 05:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20540948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhovanel/pseuds/Rhovanel
Summary: There is a demon in Anora's bedroom.





	the exit wounds of every misfired word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamerfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/gifts).

There is a demon in Anora’s bedroom.

It has dark hair and darker eyes, and it wears the face of Elissa Cousland. 

Every night it stands at the foot of her bed, and it silently stares, and it scornfully smirks.

Sometimes it screams. 

*****

Anora doesn’t want to attend the funeral.

She does, of course - it is her duty, and if there is one thing that Anora knows, it is how to do her duty. She presides over the ceremony, standing in front of the slab with Elissa Cousland’s body arranged neatly before her, and she delivers the eulogy she had hastily written in the small hours of the morning.

“Each of us had our life touched by her in some way,” she says, watching as small nods ripple across the crowd, like a stone in a smooth, still pond. It is a fitting metaphor: the effects of Elissa’s choices and her actions will continue to spread across the land, echoing through the years to come.

But she would have rather been anywhere else than standing once more at the gates of death. There have been too many funerals lately - first Cailan and then her father and now Elissa. It feels like an ill omen to begin her reign with so much loss, so she emphasises the gifts the future holds, rather than what the past has taken from them.

She gives Amaranthine to the Wardens, with gratitude and the promise of more support in the years to come.

She gives Highever back to the Couslands, meeting Fergus Cousland’s grim, haunted stare with her chin raised.

And she gives Ferelden a hero.

She had told Elissa that together they could achieve things beyond what either could do alone. As she watches hope blaze in the eyes of her people, she thinks that she was right: the two of them together, the queen and the martyr, will be enough to pull the country’s morale and its fortunes into a brighter future.

But as she looks back at Elissa’s still face, she feels a tiny twinge of regret. Elissa chose this, she tells herself, but she chose it in the same way that Anora chose to be queen - a choice that is no choice at all.

She raises her eyes once more to her people, only to see Elissa staring back at her from the very edge of the crowd. She lets out a gasp and takes a tiny step backwards, her eyes flying down to the slab, where Elissa’s body has not moved. She looks back up only to find that Elissa is gone.

Anora takes a deep breath and closes her eyes briefly. She is tired, and the gathering is full of Couslands. It was most likely a cousin, or a family member. It is a trick of the mind, nothing to be concered with - and she, Maker knows, has more than enough to be concerned with.

*****

There is a shadow in the corner of Anora’s eye.

It has broad shoulders and a determined chin, and it holds itself with the self-assurance of Elissa Cousland.

It hovers at the edges of Anora’s strategy meetings. It flits around the edges of her public audience.

When she turns to face it, it is gone.

*****

Two days after the funeral, Anora wakes to find Elissa standing at the foot of her bed. She sits up carefully, her eyes fixed on her.

“Elissa,” she says, and Elissa turns to stare at her. Her eyes are sad and her face is drawn, but she says nothing.

“You are dead,” she says. "You brought down the Archdemon, and you ended the Blight, and now you are dead."

Elissa frowns, but continues to remain silent. 

“How are you here?” she asks. “Are you a spirit? A demon?”

Elissa just stares at her.

“What happened up on the tower?”

Elissa blinks and takes a tiny step towards her, but she doesn’t speak.

“Are you going to answer my questions?” she snaps.

Elissa’s eyes bore into her own.

“Fine,” she says. “If you will not tell me why you are here, I shall have to presume you are a demon.” She raises her voice. “Guards!” she shouts.

The door crashes open and her guards burst into the room.

“What is it, your majesty?” one asks.

Anora looks at the empty space at the foot of her bed.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just a bad dream.”

The guard nods. “It has been a dark time, my lady.” 

“I apologise for disturbing you,” Anora says, and the guards bow to her and leave, plunging the room back into darkness.

Anora watches the darkness in her room, but Elissa doesn’t return, and she eventually falls into a restless sleep.

*****

There is a question in Anora’s mind.

It has many sides, and it has several ends, and it reminds her of the endless curiosity of Elissa Cousland.

“Why are you here?” Anora asks. “You always acted with such deliberation - like every choice mattered. Is this another decision you have made? Did you mean to remain behind?”

Elissa stares at her, her eyes dark in the moonlight, her answers sealed behind her lips.

*****

Anora had always known that ruling would be a heavy burden. It is a careful weighing of the present against the future, of the needs of one group against the wishes of another, of the obligation to follow the rules against the value of breaking them. But she knows how to balance the scales. She knows when to be fair and when to be firm, when to offer a smile and when to threaten the sword. 

But with her eyes fixed so firmly on the horizon, with her heart set on creating a better future, she finds herself unable to deal with a past that won’t leave her alone.

She sends for First Enchanter Irving, and under the guise of a friendly, inquisitive conversation, asks him careful questions about spirits and demons. “Can demons take the faces of the people we know?”

“Yes,” he answers. “Desire demons will often take the form of the person we long for, tempting us to reach out and touch them so they can claim us.”

Anora pauses. Elissa does not seem to be enticing her - she does not speak, and she never reaches for her. 

“Are there other examples?” she asks.

“Well, I suppose a fear demon might take the form of a person, if there was someone we particularly feared.”

She shakes her head again - she does not fear Elissa.

Irving looks at her thoughtfully. “Are you seeing someone you know?” he asks. “Your father, perhaps?”

“No,” she says quickly, but he doesn’t look convinced.

“Grief is a difficult process,” he says gently. “It can play tricks on the mind.”

She sighs. “Yes, thank you, Irving,” she says, turning away with a gesture of dismissal.

It cannot be grief, she thinks, as Irving leaves. She grieves for Cailan, and for her father, but she hardly knew Elissa. 

They had met a few times in their youth, at various court events and balls, but they had never exchanged more than a few polite, meaningless words. And even during the Blight, she could count the number of times they had spoken on one hand.

But her people grieve for the Hero, and she wields that grief for her own political purposes, so perhaps this demon is of her own making, after all.

*****

There is an echo in Anora’s ears.

It resounds with uncertainty, and it rings with silence, and it sounds like the stolen voice of Elissa Cousland.

“Are you my guilt?” she asks her. “My conscience? Or a cautionary message?”

The silence in the room is no answer at all.

*****

Anora starts talking to her. She cannot help it, really - she lacks for companionship. Elissa never replies, but somehow, her silence feels more honest than the trite words of her lords and ladies, who simply tell her what she wants to hear.

During the day, her eyes stray to Elissa when she makes decisions, and she watches her nod when she stations the Grey Wardens throughout the land.

In the evenings, she talks to her as she works through her papers and writes missives to the rulers of the surrounding nations. Elissa stands at her shoulder, watching silently, and occasionally pointing to a particular letter that she wants Anora to deal with.

And at night, she doesn’t say anything at all, just meets her gaze across the expanse of her luxurious bed.

Anora begins to learn the tiny expressions that flit across Elissa’s face. She can tell when she is amused, and when she is annoyed, and when she is sad and wistful. Anora used to think that silence was empty, but she is learning that it is nothing to fear: it is rich with feeling, if you only know how to listen to it.

*****

There is a pressure in Anora’s bones.

It tingles with anticipation, and it aches with expectation, and it feels like the wasted promise of Elissa Cousland.

“Why me?” she asks. “You could have haunted anyone - Alistair, your family, the Wardens, even Morrigan. Why are you following me? Do you not trust me to rule Ferelden in your place?”

Elissa shakes her head slightly, but offers no alternatives.

*****

Elissa always stands at the foot of her bed, until one day, she doesn’t.

Anora wakes to the feeling of something icy in her chest, and she sits up with a gasp, clutching her chest. Elissa is by her side, standing at the edge of her bed, her hand hovering over her chest.

“Is something the matter?” Anora asks. "Is it darkspawn?"

But Elissa just reaches for her again, and Anora shivers as a cold touch trails down her arm. It makes the fine hairs on her arms stand on end, and she shivers beneath it. It is cold, yet it is not exactly unpleasant.

Elissa never touches anything. She fades through walls, and she passes her hands through stacks of letters, and on rainy evenings, she stretches her palms through the window to watch the water fall straight through them. And even now, she doesn't touch Anora, exactly. But Anora can _feel_ it nonetheless - an icy caress that feels nothing like human skin.

Elissa runs a finger from her chin to her navel, passing straight through the bedclothes to trail along her skin. Her eyes flicker with amusement as Anora quivers, but when Anora raises her hand to reach for her, she immediately takes a step back and disappears.

If she is not fear, and she is not grief, then that leaves desire.

*****

There is a fire in Anora’s blood.

It is cold like ice, and it is sharp like the winter, and it feels like the touch of Elissa Cousland.

She touches her in the dark of the night, running her hand through her hair, across her stomach, along her thighs.

Anora gasps under her strange, icy touch, but whenever she reaches to return the favour, her hand passes through nothingness.

*****

The night before the Landsmeet, she had told Cousland that Ferelden did not need another good man. She had meant it as a subtle persuasion, an appeal from one woman to another, but now, she wonders if there was more truth in it. If a good queen is her country, then she and Ferelden are the same, and neither of them need a good man.

She turns down the offers of marriage that land at her door. She entertains the lords and nobles from across Thedas, and she smiles at them and she treats them kindly, but she takes none of them seriously. She looks at Elissa’s scowling face, and she knows that she already has a companion.

Despite what her advisers say, Ferelden does not need a king. It already has a queen and a hero, and so does she.

Irving asks her whether she has more questions about spirits.

“No,” she answers. “I believe I have figured it out.”

*****

There is a smile on Anora’s lips.

It is a secret smile for secret times, and it matches the smile on the face of Elissa Cousland.

Her detractors call her cold. Her supporters call her wise. Yet they do not realise that ice burns just as much as fire.

And if Elissa is a demon, Anora thinks, then let her be _her_ demon.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi gamerfic, I heard you like ghost stories! I hope you enjoy this one, and that you've had a wonderful exchange.
> 
> The title comes from Ocean Vuong's beautiful poem "To My Father/To My Unborn Son."


End file.
